"You are different—better, perhaps, in some things. You are taller. You are so tall that it will be difficult to remember you are a pupil."
"The Darrells are a tall race," she said, quietly. "Miss Hastings, what have you come here to teach me?"
The elder lady rose from her seat and looked lovingly into the face of the girl; she placed her hand caressingly on the slender shoulders.
"I know what I should like to teach you, Miss Darrell, if you will let me. I should like to teach you your duty to Heaven, your fellow-creatures, and yourself."
"That would be dry learning, I fear," she returned. "What does my uncle wish me to learn?"
"To be in all respects a perfectly refined, graceful lady."
Her face flushed with a great crimson wave that rose to the white brow and the delicate shell-like ears.
"I shall never be that," she cried, passionately. "I may just as well give up all hopes of Darrell Court. I have seen some ladies since I have been here. I could not be like them. They seem to speak by rule; they all say the same kind of things, with the same smiles, in the same tone of voice; they follow each other like sheep; they seem frightened to advance an opinion of their own, or even give utterance to an original thought. They look upon me as something horrible, because I dare to say what I think, and have read every book I could find."
"It is not always best to put our thoughts in speech; and the chances are, Miss Darrell, that, if you have read every book you could find, you have read many that would have been better left alone. You are giving a very one-sided, prejudiced view after all."
She raised her beautiful head with a gesture of superb disdain.